West Notes: Athletics, Gray, Padres, Weaver, Dodgers

Athletics right-hander Sonny Gray endured an injury-plagued 2016 in which his production declined sharply, thereby hurting his trade value. Gray isn’t far removed from an ace-like stretch from 2013-15, though, and a rebound this year would increase the likelihood of the A’s trading him during the season, writes Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle. While general manager David Forst would like Gray to spend the next decade in an A’s uniform, the two sides haven’t engaged in any extension talks, reports Slusser (Twitterlinks). Gray, 28, is controllable via arbitration through the 2019 campaign and will make $3.58MM this season.

More from California:

The Padres are maintaining interest in free agent righty Jered Weaver, tweets Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune. San Diego has been targeting Weaver for over a month, and the team reportedly offered him more than the $1.75MM in guarantees it gave to each of Jhoulys Chacin, Trevor Cahill and Clayton Richard earlier this offseason. The 34-year-old Weaver, a careerlong Angel who’s coming off his worst season, would presumably join Chacin, Cahill and Richard to comprise four-fifths of a rotation if he were to sign with the rebuilding Padres. The Friars have also shown interest in fellow veteran righty Jake Peavy, their former ace, but talks between the two haven’t “heated up,” per Lin.

The Dodgers are prioritizing their bullpen as spring training approaches, team president Andrew Friedman informed Doug Padilla of ESPN.com. “I don’t think you ever get to a place with the bullpen where you’re done,” said Friedman. “It’s something that every year, heading into the season, it scares you.” The Dodgers have added Brandon Morrow as a potential bullpen piece this week, and they’re reportedlyin on free agents Joe Blanton, Craig Breslow and Jerry Blevins. Blanton was a prominent member of the Dodgers’ relief corps last season, as was J.P Howell, but they haven’t been able to land deals with February nearing.

After beginning last season as a starter, Dodgers southpaw Alex Wood underwent an elbow procedure in July and returned as a reliever toward the end of the campaign. He could be a factor in their bullpen this year, then, but Wood said Saturday that he’ll work as a starter in spring training and expects to crack the Dodgers’ season-opening rotation (Twitter link via Ken Gurnick of MLB.com). Wood might have a legitimate shot to land a starting job to begin the year, as phenom Julio Uriascould head to extended spring training in the early going. It appears Wood will face competition from Hyun-Jin Ryu, however.

The Athletics are unlikely to make any further roster alterations leading up spring training, according to Forst (Twitter link via John Hickey of the Bay Area News Group). If the A’s are indeed done for the offseason, outfielders Matt Joyce and Rajai Davis, reliever Santiago Casilla and third baseman Trevor Plouffe will go down as their winter haul.

Comments

It seemed to me that Forst said the comment about keeping Sonny for so long was because thats what the fans at fan fest wanted to hear. He and Bomel were getting tons of questions about not trading players.

If Ryu and Kazmir can pitch they will start, either for the Dodgers or some other team. Add them to Urias, McCarthy and Wood, and you get potentially five starters trying to squeeze into two rotation spots. Short of another round of horrendous injuries something is going to have to give. It’s reassuring to hear Friedman talk about prioritizing the bullpen but I don’t think he’s going to do it with converted starters. Depending on how they look in spring training, more likely one of the starting surplus is flipped for a legitimate setup man.

I see Kazmir McCarthy getting flipped in trades. wood said on twitter I believe he’s going to slot into a starter but I believe he’ll be full time pen mid season. Dodgers get plagued into injuries but I feel Ryu rebounds pitches 2.6-3.2 ball and urias gets used in the pen for a bit. Hopefully Roberts keeps the bullpen fresh and not gassing them to pitch every other game by the 5th inning. Friedman needs to get 2-3 bp guys to make a legitimate run this year

Naturally Wood wants to be a starter and is going to try to pitch himself into that role but in this group he’s the most likely to be used as a swing man. Well maybe Urias for awhile too. Dayton might be good, Liberatore might bounce back — but after them, the bullpen is a pretty uninspiring group. Roberts gassed Blanton last season because of his lack of better options.

Maybe if they were willing to give up sisco and mancini, plus s guy off their roster like schoop. I doubt they’d do that though because they wouldn’t have one good prospect left and they’d just be opening up another hole

There’s a difference between an offer on the table and a theoretical offer a team could put on the table. And it is a big difference.

Course plenty of teams could beat a package of Sisco, Mancini, Reyes, and Harvey, but are they actually putting offers better than that on the table for the A’s?

If the Orioles are offering Sisco, Mancini, Reyes, and Harvey for Gray and nobody is offering a package better than that, holding onto their own pieces and refusing to part with them, then all those hypothetical packages mean nothing.

We do not know what the A’s are being offered for Gray, we know what they’d expect and what teams would like to part with given his down year.

Check sundevil617’s comments. Roberts “gassed” the bullpen by the time the NLCS rolled around and even then overused Blanton because he was the only reliable righty besides Jansen. He had a solid season, but had nothing left in the tank by October. A more reliable pen and that doesn’t happen.

He wasn’t elite there’s a very small group of guys you can call elite. But simply the Dodgers don’t make the playoffs without him. But having Blanton back would be nice. That being said they most likely need a arm at the all star break.

If he is only an innings eater they shouldn’t give him a penny more than the $1.75 mil the others got. Especially since he is likely to be the worst of the lot. Peavy actually makes more sense if they have to have one of those two.

Hey guy, some pitchers regularly outperform their metrics, Weaver is one of those guys, Sonny Gray actually is another. Advanced pitching metrics don’t like control or groundball guys the way they do power pitchers, it’s just a thing but Weaver in his prime was never under or overrated, he was a very good front of the rotation guy.

BTW Sonny Gray hasn’t ever had more than 3.7 fWAR in a season, and that technically isn’t an “ace” pitcher, but Gray has performed in so many postseason and very important regular season games, he earned that “ace” tag many still slap him with. You are using this preposterous, ill-defined “ace” or “SP 1-5” rankings where the quality of all those pitchers vary from person to person.

Simple things like 83 MPH fastball are far more important in this case. Weaver is not a MLB pitcher anymore. 83 MPH just doesn’t cut it.

Weaver was never better than a #2 or a #3 in his prime in those 3 years from 2010-2012. He sat 90 mph then and he could reach back for 94-95 max velocity. Then his velocity started falling because by his own admission he didn’t do the workouts and stretching his team recommended. Now his max velocity is 86-87 mph and he sits 82-84 on his FT and FA respectively. Not good enough when you have kids with the same movement throwing 93-95.

At this point, no one has offered Weaver a major league contract including the Padres or he would have signed.

I think the Padres are waiting to see what kind of bargain they can get on Wood or Hammel.

Weaver was a 5 WAR pitcher in his prime, that literally is what an ace level is, no arguing – you are just being arrogantly wrong and hating on him. I agree he’s very bad now but he wasnt ever over or underrated, he was good and the ace and everyone knew it except for revisionists like yourself.

Weaver isn’t really the kind of pitcher you say he is and if he really was a ground ball pitcher why would the Padres, who are going to have one of the worst defensive infields in baseball, have any interest?

I would rather see the Padres try to go after Travis Wood or Jason Hammel. Weaver could be an asset as a mentor but lacks much upside to me. I expect Hammel to go after a multiyear deal but if the Padres could pull off a sign and trade at the deadline like Rodney I think that helps the farm system at little cost.

One of the guys on the Padres board said he was on a plane from Denver to San Diego with Wood a week or so ago. Don’t know if that means anything, but I think you are right that he would be a better fit than Weaver and his 83 mph FB.

Honestly if Oakland added Mike Napoli for DH/1B they wouldn’t have -that- bad a team. They have so many pitching prospects who are advancing through the minors with great numbers at each level, they are most likely going to look like a very different team on August 1, but also that team might be very good.

Offensively, no not at all. Defensively has a chance to be really bad though. Vogt as full time catcher is sketchy, and I dont really like the Lowrie/Semien up the middle combo either. OF looks a little range-light as well (btw this is all opinion without seeing the actual #s so I may be way off)

Ultimately I think that this is a bridge year and Napoli or not, 4 of those guys will be dealt by year’s end: Rajai, Joyce, Plouffe, and Lowrie